It's months ago, since I updated this journal. Since my dear girlfriend jadejenkins tagged me, I will gladly take the opportunity. Here are the rules, vague as they may be:

1. Post these rules.
2. Each tagged person must post 8 things about themselves on their journal.
3. At the end, you have to choose and tag 4-8 people and post their icons on the same journal.
4. Go to their pages and send a message saying you tagged them.
5. No tag-backs.

Eight things, and no more hints. Well ...

1. Right now I should be studying for my final exam. It will be from next Friday to Wednesday. I study Japan and am finally approaching the goal line. But I tend to get distracted ...

2. What distracts me most is the game of go. It's an ancient strategy game with the aim to either control more territory than the opponent or, if that doesn't work, to just completely destroy him. If you want to check it out, go to www.gokgs.com. I play there as HonFu, and since I'm totally addicted, it's very likely you will meet me there.

3. To support me during my go - hum - Japan studies, I play the piano in an Italian restaurant. Think of any sappy song you know, probably it's on my play list. Oh yes, and I give piano lessons.

4. Before I studied Japan, I studied for becoming a music teacher. I felt ahead of most of them, so I thought, I should do more than just be a teacher. I applied at some music academies for becoming a composer, but ... well, this time my competitors seemed to be ahead of me. I lost patience and started all over with something completely different.

5. This was the time when I came together with my darling jadejenkins. A new love, a new town and a new study subject. A lot of water has flown down the river since then. We've been living together for almost 8 years now.

6. Since she's a passionate writer, I started to do a bit of it too, but I'm still a rookie. I wrote a few short stories and a medium thing of maybe 80 pages. Every publisher I sent it to, denied it, so ... well, these days, if I write something, it is just a little haiku for fun, which you will find here.

7. Did you know that haiku has a connection to Zen buddhism? I would not say that they are inseparable, but there are many who think of a haiku as an expression of enlightenment. Enlightenment in Zen buddhism doesn't mean you hear the voices of spirits or something, but that you lose everything which normally distracts you from perceiving the world as it really is. Imagine you are totally absorbed in everyday worries, maybe you are in a fight with your lover, and you plan, though too late, what you would say to sweetheart, if the situation came up again, and then you step out of the door and see - BAM! - all is white. Over night snow has fallen and you didn't even recognize. For a moment you are just pulled out of your normal thinking, you're just perceiving. You don't think about yourself, there is only this special moment you experience. Well, and a haiku in this sense tries to capture such a moment, which is in some way intense or special, which stands alone and pulls you out of illusion into enlightened reality. Well, and what does that have to do with me? As a teenager I was quite esoteric for a while, and among the spiritual stuff I tried was also Zen buddhism. I still believe that it is good, but I just have no patience to really do it. Don't moving or thinking for just a few minutes makes me so mad!

8. Lately a lot of things make me mad. Maybe it is just this phase of life, where everything is supposed to change, but at the same time doesn't get into motion. Sometimes I think I'm too old anyway for my life to move into any useful direction. I'll be one of those graduate taxi drivers everybody is making jokes about. Well ... since I have no driver's licence, at least that can not happen. We shouldn't cruise around so much in our cars anyways! Think about the ice bears!

Okay. Rule 4 I have to change, I just don't know enough people around here! You two, whom I hereby tag: Feel free to ignore this if you don't want to be part of this avalanche.

Haven't seen you around for a while, no new poems?

I don't know if you're still coming here, but ... well, us insane go players got to stick together!